Melissa Blouin

BS Business Admin. - Human Resources Mgmt.

"With students from all over the world, you get a different perspective."

Melissa Blouin had a successful career in sales, and no college degree.

“Having a college education was always something I felt I missed,” she says.

A layoff got her thinking about going back to school.

“The first thing headhunters ask is, ‘Do you have a degree?’” Melissa says. “I’d been in the industry for 10 years, had a great job, and they didn’t care. You had a degree or you didn’t.”

Forty and the mother of a young child, Melissa believed she was too old, and too busy, to start taking classes. She was also filled with self-doubt.

“To go back to school academically, in business courses, was terrifying,” she says.

But after an encouraging talk with an SNHU advisor, Melissa enrolled in the online business administration/ human resources management bachelor’s program.

“My advisor, the whole experience at SNHU, has been so wonderful,” Melissa says. “Any questions I’ve had, she’s been right there for me.”

Looking back, the senior says she never imagined how much a college education would change her and her family.

“I’m showing my daughter how important school is,” Melissa says, adding that her husband is now a student at SNHU.

None of this would be possible, she adds, if it weren’t for the online program.

“I love the environment and the talking back and forth with the other students, getting a lot of different ideas and feedback,” she says. “You can get stuck in one way of thinking. With students from all across the country, and the world, you get a different perspective on things.”